Affine structures on a class of virtually nilpotent groups (Q2565102)

An affine structure on a group \(E\) is a properly discontinuous affine action of \(E\) on some \(\mathbb{R}^m\) with compact quotient. The authors translate the notion of an affine structure on a nilpotent group into concepts on the Lie group and the Lie algebra levels. This some different point of view enables to obtain a sufficient condition to have a positive answer to the question of whether or not a given affine structure on a nilpotent group \(N\) extends to a group \(E\) containing \(N\) as a normal subgroup of finite index. This condition is translated into the language of complementary submodules in the universal enveloping algebra of a nilpotent Lie algebra. Applying the main result the authors construct a class of virtually 4-step nilpotent groups admitting an affine structure, the existence of which was not known.